BlackBerry News

If the phrase, "Who Shot JR?" brings back a flood of memories of the Southfork Ranch, Jock, Bobby, Sue Ellen and an earwig of a theme song, you're most definitely a child of the 80's. And for you and the younger generation, the cable TV channel TNT has brought back the drama
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It's never a good time to deliver bad news, but RIM has begun to lay off some of its employees. Various sources have confirmed today that RIM has indeed began to communicate to employees that they are being let go. Apparently positions are being cut in different areas, including
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Spotify has finally come out of the public beta they were running and will now be available to certain BlackBerry users via App World.

For those of you wondering, Spotify is an app that allows you to stream tons of songs directly to your BlackBerry device with a simple click. It's actually a really nifty app and does all its functions extremely well. Many that have tried the beta out rave about it so it's definitely cool to see it finally hit App World.

Now, why did we say only a certain amount of BlackBerry users can get it? Well, Spotify has informed us that the app currently only supports certain GSM and CDMA carriers' BlackBerry devices. Apparently, Verizon BlackBerry devices are one of the group that isn't being supported right now.

No word on if/when other devices will be supported but we definitely hope that is the case in the near future. For now though head on over to App World and check to see if your device is supported. Leave us a comment below to let us know if your device/carrier is supported!

It has been confirmed by the fine folks over at N4BB.com, that the much anticipated BlackBerry 10 phone is ahead of schedule. The phone, who's launch, has been rumored to be in October, may possibly be released earlier than October. Makes a September launch sound fantastic, doesn't it? Or dare to dream...a late August release. I'm not getting my hopes up for August but September for a device release sounds wonderful.

The news keeps getting better as it as also been confirmed that RIM has taken a step away from the black and chrome from the phones and the black matte of the Playbook. Another interesting piece of news is that the physical keyboard version of the BlackBerry 10 phone is in the last stage of production. All very interesting and exciting news!! Makes me all excited for the end of summer. Let's hope the wait goes by quickly.

Let's all hope that things keep moving ahead of schedule and we all get the BlackBerry 10 phone in our hands sooner than later!

Evernote for PlayBook has now been updated to v1.3. The Evernote app lets you remember and recall anything that happens in your life. From notes to ideas to snapshots to recordings, put it all into Evernote and watch as everything instantly synchronizes from your BlackBerry phone or tablet and to your Mac or PC. No changelog with this release, so I imagine that this version takes care of bugs fixes. Get updated and let us know of any findings/fixes that you may notice!

Former Binibining Pilipinas title holders Lia, Nicolette and Jennifer have reinstated the world renowned Philippine beauty and brains when they represented the country to various international beauty pageants. Swamped with hectic beauty queen roles and modeling contracts, find out how these young, beautiful and modern women smoothly juggle their personal and professional lives and yet manage to stay connected at all times. Check out the video below!

When news broke out that Scalado, the company behind RIM's BlackBerry 10 camera technology, was acquired by Nokia, many were a little worried RIM would have problems getting this functionality onto BlackBerry 10 fully.

Today, Nokia SVP of Program and Product Management, Kevin Shields stated: "We're doing it in such a way that Scalado can...fully deliver on commitments they've made to all of their partners, that includes RIM."

So now we can all breathe a sigh of relief due to this latest development. We will have the time machine camera, as I like to call it, on BlackBerry 10.

FaceBook for BlackBerry has made its way out of the Beta Zone and into App World. FaceBook has been refined in the Beta Zone over the past month and is now ready for prime time. Version 3.1.0.17 adds two new features groups and the ability to “Like” individual comments. Make sure you
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Once again RIM has given us a sneak peek into its innovative BlackBerry 10 OS. The BlackBerry 10 platform has slowly been making more appearances due to RIM's BlackBerry 10 Jam world tour. Although RIM has been keeping the lid on most of the features that make up BB 10 we have been given enough of a taste to know that RIM is on to something very good here.

The BlackBerry 10 Jam world tour made its way to New York; and our Senior Editor AgentBlackBerry had the chance to sit down with RIM's principal architect, Gary Klassen to get a hands-on look at some of the features that BlackBerry 10 has to offer.

RIM wants you to stop missing out and to crash the party! RIM has launched a month long Interstate Tour in Malaysia that will party it's way through some of the countries major cities. The Interstate Tour will be stopping at, Penang, Kuching, Johor Bahru, and Kuala Lumpur. This ultimate party is part of RIM's "Stop Missing Out" campaign in Malaysia. The events help promote the recently released BlackBerry Curve 9220 and 9320.

The BlackBerry Interstate Tour is invite only so you will have to get invited. To get yourself an invitation head on over to BlackBerry Malaysia's Facebook fan page and follow @BlackBerryMY . Attendees will also have a chance to win a new BlackBerry Curve!

If you live in Malaysia and snag your self an invite let us know how it went, and show us some pictures. For even more contests from BlackBerry Malaysia you can check out the official Stop Missing Out website.

With the recent news of Research In Motion restructuring and a large unsold inventory of phones and tablets, Celestica, one of the hardware suppliers for RIM has announced it will stop supplying hardware for BlackBerry phones over the next three to six months.

Could the leaked sales information of RIM devices by a former AT&T employee, caused the premature fall of Research In Motion's stock prices? Alnoor Ebrahim, the former AT&T employee plead guilty to insider trading today in U.S. District Court. This caused investors
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It seems like all the work Alec Saunders and his team of BlackBerry Developer relations, including Dave Balmer--even though today is his first day--has paid off. The much anticipated BlackBerry Developer webcast entitled "Astonishing UIs using the new BlackBerry 10 framework" is in such high demand that they are now offering the FREE webinar five times!

From an email they sent event registrants earlier today,

The response has been overwhelming! So much that our webcast technology cannot accommodate the number of people that have registered. And we want to ensure everyone gets a true interactive experience. The live question and answer period has always been the most popular part of our webcasts.
To accommodate everyone we are running the webcast as follows:

In an effort to promote the BlackBerry Curve 9360, RIM has begun a strong ad campaign in Singapore that targets the National Service men. With a little eye candy, and a camera-less device RIM is hoping to lure the servicemen of Singapore's military into a new Curve 9360. A camera in the military is generally frowned upon, so the camera-less 9360 is an ideal fit for such a situation. RIM is also looking to market the social networking aspects of the Curve 9360, by promoting the easy integration of Facebook, BBM, and games.

Singapore has been a hot spot for BlackBerry smartphones as it is one of the most popular brands in the country. RIM has been working hard trying to enhance their infrastructure in Singapore, and chose it over Indonesia to place key infrastructure equipment. Indonesia has one of the worlds largest BlackBerry populations at over 2.6 million customers.

David Balmer, a former product manager, engineer and evangelist in the webOS Developer Relations team for Palm/HP left the company after only two years to become the Senior BlackBerry Developer Evangelist for Research In Motion.

This is definitely good news given Dave's specialty is in HTML5, part of RIM's current strategy in getting back in the mobile arena. Possibly behind this move is Balmer's development of his "highly efficient cross platform app framework based on HTML5." He is mentioned as the sole developer in his LinkedIn profile and mentions that it has been developed with webkit in mind in his spare time. Interestingly enough it promises to be able to create mobile websites and native apps (using PhoneGap) for iOS, Android, webOS, Chrome, Safari, BlackBerry and more. Surely it won't be long before RIM adds this open source framework to the already long list of open source technologies available to developers through the BlackBerry 10 SDK.

What we do know for sure, is that Dave agrees with the recent positive press RIM has been getting. In a blog post on his personal site today, he lists three reasons behind the move.

WebOS went from being a leader in HTML5 to being a "distant follower."

RIM has shown that "web developers can and should be equal citizens with native developers.

In his own words: "BB10 itself is damn awesome. It has some of goodies I liked from webOS, iOS and even Win7; but all streamlined and more functional. Plus, there are even more unique features and slick interactions which help put it way over the top in my book…. and it’s not even released yet."

Welcome Dave to #TeamBlackberry by leaving a comment on his Blog or sending him a tweet @balmer.